rebuttal-guidance

name

rebuttal-guidance

description

Provides actionable peer-review rebuttal guidance (not full rebuttal prose) using conditional persuasion P(Z|X,Y): match reviewer mindset X, recommend strategy Y, optionally ground in manuscript evidence and similar successful historical (review, rebuttal) pairs. Use when the user pastes reviewer comments, asks for rebuttal help, rebuttal guidance, response to reviewers, how to reply to R1.W2, OpenReview rebuttal, or the reviewer ignored the rebuttal.

Rebuttal Guidance

Overview

This skill delivers executable rebuttal guidance per concern: structured plans, evidence pointers, tone and strategy priorities. It does not produce ready-to-paste rebuttal prose; the author writes the final text.

The core model is conditional persuasion P(Z=1 | X, Y):

• X: reviewer mindset (behavior cluster inferred from review text)
• Y: rebuttal strategy vector (which tactics to emphasize)
• Z: success (score increase or paper accepted)

When to use

• User pastes Weaknesses / Questions from ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, EMNLP, etc.
• User asks how to respond to a specific reviewer comment.
• User wants a structured plan before writing rebuttal prose.
• User asks which tone or evidence strategy fits a harsh vs. open reviewer.
• User says "reviewer ignored my rebuttal" and wants to recalibrate.

When NOT to use

• User wants full rebuttal text copied verbatim → output guidance first; warn against blind LLM paste.
• User asks to evaluate a research idea → use idea-evaluator.
• User asks for pre-submission paper review → use pre-submission-reviewer.
• No review text provided → ask for it first.

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Core procedure

Step 1: Inventory concerns

Extract every numbered Weakness and Question from the pasted review. If the user pasted only one reviewer's block, ask whether other reviewers exist.

Output a short table:

ID	Type	One-line summary
R1.W1	W	...
R1.Q1	Q	...

Step 2: Classify each concern

See: references/concern-classification.md

Tag each item as one of: misunderstanding | evidence_gap | novelty | baseline_fairness | scope_claim | writing_clarity | theory | efficiency | other

Step 3: Match reviewer mindset (X)

See: references/mindset-matching-heuristics.md

Score the review on 5–7 behavior signals (openness, severity, constructiveness, specificity, skepticism, harshness, actionability). Map scores to a cluster in references/mindset-library.md.

State: matched cluster name, confidence (high / medium / low), and the specific phrases that triggered the match.

Step 4: Strategy priorities for this mindset (Y)

From the matched cluster in references/mindset-library.md, read:

• Historical up-rate: calibrate how likely a score increase is.
• Rule-stat diffs (success vs. failure %): boost tactics with positive diff.
• Cohen's d effects: highlight dimensions with d > 0.8 in success group.
• Success / failure patterns: concrete do's and don'ts from data.
• Key strategy: one-sentence summary for this cluster.

Cross-check dimensions in references/strategy-dimensions.md.

Step 5: Per-concern guidance

For each concern, emit a guidance block (not final prose):

### R?.W?: [short title]
- **Concern type**: ...
- **Mindset-aware strategy**: ...
- **Recommended structure**: Acknowledge → Response → Evidence → Revision note
- **Clarify from paper?**: yes/no: where to look (section, table, appendix)
- **New experiment needed?**: yes/no: what exactly (no fabricated numbers)
- **Tone note**: ...
- **Template**: A / B / C: see references/response-templates.md
- **Avoid**: ...

Do not fabricate experimental numbers. Mark anything unverified as [TO VERIFY].

Step 6: Integrity gate

Before finalizing, run through references/checklist.md.

Key flags:

• Every W/Q has a guidance block.
• No fabricated numbers.
• Defensive phrases (e.g., "you misunderstood") flagged.
• Overpromise risk flagged for scope_claim and evidence_gap types.

Step 7: Output format

Deliver a ## Rebuttal Guidance section containing:

1. Reviewer mindset summary: cluster name, confidence, identifying phrases.
2. Global strategy priorities: 3–5 bullets from mindset data.
3. Per-concern guidance: Step 5 blocks for each W/Q.
4. Checklist highlights: pass/fail on key integrity items.

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Reference map

Purpose	File
Concern type → response priority	concern-classification.md
Reviewer signal → mindset cluster	mindset-matching-heuristics.md
Mindset clusters with stats & patterns	mindset-library.md
10 strategy dimensions (Y)	strategy-dimensions.md
Response templates A / B / C	response-templates.md
Pre-submit integrity checklist	checklist.md